Approved routes and alternative paths: The construction of women's careers in large accounting firms

What is it about?

Despite decades of gender-balanced recruitment and clear-cut criteria for promotion based on meritocracy, women in public accounting firms remain proportionally fewer in number in the highest levels of the hierarchy than men. This paper aims to explore the mechanisms fostering women's rarity in top positions within French accounting firms in terms of organizationally constructed approved paths. Drawing on 23 semi-structured interviews with both male and female accountants, the specificities of these approved paths, alongside the construction of alternative, feminized routes, lacking the legitimacy of the former and often implying a derailment of women's careers from a very early stage, will be explored. It is suggested that more than a matter of only lifestyle preferences or practical constraints, this rarity is constructed by the interplay between the two, often resulting in “unintended and unwanted consequences, which retroactively may become unacknowledged conditions of future actions” (Giddens, 1984: 76). The focus of this study is to understand how the discursive and practical components of daily routines contribute to the reproduction of Big Four's gendered culture. Furthermore, this paper challenges the concept of the glass ceiling and instead conceives of the construction of women's careers in the accounting profession in terms of a labyrinth.

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Why is it important?

Women's trajectories in professional firms are more complicated than previously though. Women's careers start derailing from an early stage when many find themselves stuck in blind alleys with little prospects of promotion. The metaphor of the labyrinth I use in this paper throws light on the fact that there is not a unique glass ceiling placed in the top of the hierarchy stopping women's access towards top positions, but a multitude of cumulative obstacles and choices which derail their careers from the organizationally 'approved' path towards partnership 9the top position in professional service firms such as audit firms).